


watching for birds.

by jetjumped



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Soft birds meeting for the first time with a little something extra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 10:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10614675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetjumped/pseuds/jetjumped
Summary: A chance encounter on a cliff's edge is the first step to giving childhood dreams a little more meaning than expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This came to mind and kind of fell out of my hands really quickly, but I hope it's all reasonably coherent! Enjoy :)

Fareeha dreams of flying. She dreams of diving down towards a blur of green that breaks into an endless blue, meeting the white sky and hazy glow of a sun that she might only reach if her wings would carry her high enough.

Angela dreams of flying too. She dreams of gliding over canopies, higher and higher till she’s amidst the clouds with tufts of white streaming past her outstretched wings, nothing tangible to tie her down to the world below.

Sometimes they fly with the other birds, birds unlike any other they see while awake. These creatures soar as if it’s the wind that comes to them, lifting their waiting wings from below, pushing them into an effortless rhythm that beats only when their gliding slows. Their birdsong isn’t the fragmented chirping, the primal gargle, from a crack in cliffside rocks. It’s a melody that drifts from one beak to the next, an unbroken soprano like radiant sunlight, spilling out into the open sky. It’s a dream they have both had as long as they can remember, but recently the flock has attained a new member. One of blue feathers, or golden ones depending on who does the dreaming. Now _their_ song is the most beautiful of all.

* * *

 

In a bundle of blue, a seven-year-old Fareeha slides down the bannister and lands at the foot of the staircase before a surprised Ana. The latter frowns but ruffles her daughter’s hair affectionately.

“We’ve talked about this, habibti. You could injure yourself!”

Fareeha, too excited to be bothered with the risks, ignores her concerns and brushes away the hand. “Umi! I had the bird dream again!”

Ana can only sigh, rummaging around in her bag for the pineapple buns she had just come back from the bakery with. “Did you? Where did you fly this time?”

“I don’t know! But it was fun,” Fareeha grins, even wider when her mother holds out the bun for her to take. Those were her favourite. “I think I was in a cloud, like the one from the book last night.”

“Have you told your uncle Reinhardt about it?”

“Oh!” Fareeha dashes off to the living room without saying goodbye, almost tripping over herself in her excitement.

Three years later, her dreams become a comfort when she isn’t strong enough to win a fight against a school bully. She would get out of bed the next day, scrapes all bandaged up and no less deterred from showing those bullies why they couldn’t push the little people around anymore. And she would come home, with signs of a childish scuffle evident but a wide smile on her face. Ana had words with her that evening.

* * *

 

“What else could you see, Ängeli?”

“I could see the stars. They were beautiful, it was like they were calling me.” Angela crunches through another spoonful of her cereal, ticking off her mental checklist for the things she had to bring to school that day.

“Calling you?” Her father puts down the newspaper, always so attentive when his daughter talked about her dreams. “That’s fascinating, I wish I could dream like you, Ange.”

“They’re just dreams, Papi. You get to travel!”

“I do, I do.” Doctor Ziegler takes a sip from his coffee. “But dreams are special. Maybe they will invent wings for you to fly with one day.”

“Could they really? I would love to fly.” Angela’s face lights up as any twelve-year-old’s might at the prospect of flying.

“Finish your breakfast first! How will my little angel fly on an empty stomach?”

The bowl of cereal is quick to empty, as is Angela’s glass of orange juice. Proudly proclaiming that she was ready to “fly off” to school, her father pats her twice on the head and says goodbye for the morning. The two hug and then Angela is out the door, into the car in which her mother sat in the driver’s seat. Ever an early bird when it came to class attendance.

* * *

 

Almost twenty years later and it’s nothing like Fareeha’s first deployment with the military. The crowds of soldiers and numerous salutes handed off to the higher ups aren’t half as frequent here. Fareeha presumes it’s because this is Overwatch, a group of the elite, and there weren’t many of those left, especially after what happened to the Swiss base.

Accepting her pack with the callsign ‘Pharah’ printed atop the sealed Gibraltar orientation file, she’s directed to a room on the third floor of the base and told to report back at 0900 hours after she’s settled in. The process goes smoothly though as far as she could tell, nobody else had arrived today. If they had, they were very quiet about it.

She busies herself with mindless activities; making her bed, packing things away into the closet, skimming over the welcome messages and noting how there were four other recipients to Winston’s email. She doesn’t recognise any of their names, but pondering who they _could_ be burns time as well as anything.

Nine o’clock rolls round though Fareeha waits outside the conference room five minutes early. She’s just about to enter when a flash of blue zips past her peripheral vision into clear view, inches from the wall.

“Phew, that was a close one - Oh! Winston!”

The woman pipes up, dashing forward in another flash and leaps into the arms of the scientist.

“It’s been _too_ long.”

“I agree, it’s good to see you again, Lena. Care to say hi to our newest recruit?”

Winston gestures to the door where Fareeha still stands, broad shouldered and bold but stiff and awkward, unsure if she should intrude on the reunion of two old friends. When Winston waves her over, Fareeha has to stop herself snapping off a salute. They had established the lack of titles here, until a Strike Commander presented themselves once more anyway.

“Cheers! Name’s Tracer - but call me Lena if you fancy!” She giggles, “You didn’t tell me she’d be all tall-dark-and-mysterious, Winston.” Lena grins mischievously as Winston pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Fareeha Amari. Pharah, out there.”

“Amari? As in Captain Ana Amari’s daughter Amari? Winston’s told me all about you!”

Fareeha quirks an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s no wonder you made it here!”

“I just want to serve.”

“Congrats then! There’s no better place for it.”

With a hiss, the door behind her opens again but no flash of blue light streaks past Fareeha this time. Only the quiet footsteps of someone entering the room, sidestepping past Fareeha and embracing Winston and Lena in a warm hug. Fareeha straightens up as though she’s had a bucket of ice cold water chucked down the back of her shirt. There’s nothing she recognises about the blonde woman, but in the same instant, everything about her radiates familiarity.

“Mercy?” She speaks without quite meaning to, and not entirely knowing quite why she had.

The woman turns around and smiles politely, though Fareeha could have sworn something in her expression flickers for just a moment.

“Just - ” It’s funny how in just half a word, Fareeha can catch the foreign accent, the curious tone that matches the look in her eyes. The woman clears her throat, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she composes herself. “There’s no need for that, please. I’m Angela Ziegler.”

“Fareeha Amari.” The soldier dismisses the odd feeling, only nodding in acknowledgement when her new colleagues say they look forward to working with her.

When Angela excuses herself - something about needing to get back to her work - Fareeha watches her go and perhaps stares too long because she receives a prompt elbow to the ribs from Lena.

“Blimey, can’t say I blame you for lookin’ at ‘er, love. Haven’t seen Ange in years, but she’s a sight for sore eyes.” Lena winks and Fareeha looks away quickly, the tips of her ears burning.

“... I should go.”

Without a second glance, Fareeha disappears from the room. Lena raises a finger then shrugs it off with a laugh. Winston, confused but not entirely surprised, peels a banana.

* * *

 

Angela scrunches up her eyes against the darkness, pressing her palms to her eyelids in a fruitless effort to speed along the sleep that wouldn’t come. With a groan, she sits up and goes to flick on the light. Her desk beckoned. She might as well be useful if she wasn’t allowed to have a moment of rest.

The hum of her nanites dulled for the evening, Angela begins penning in her research plans for the lab tomorrow. She can feel the exhaustion gnawing away at her heels, albeit distantly, but the coffee machine is back in the kitchen. Too far from here. Resting her elbows on the table, she lets her head fall into her hands as her eyes drift shut. Not seeking sleep as she had been minutes earlier. Just a little peace and quiet.

Angela imagines clouds, drifting in a push and pull rhythm like the tides of an ocean. She imagines feathers, just as soft as their fluffy white surroundings, blowing in the gentle breeze of an autumn gale lifting the leaves from a forest floor. Here she can relax, pretending she can fly rather than simply tether herself to a faster body and glide only inches from the ground beneath her drifting boots. Here she can be alone, unbothered by -

Birds of blue and gold, bursting through the cloud cover and disrupting the peace.

A name gathers itself in the back of her throat, rising to the tip of her tongue as her eyes meet that of the falcon’s.

_Pharah._

Angela’s eyes snap open, birds and clouds scattering themselves to the wind.

* * *

 

It was a good thing she had taken the time to get to know the place. Each door on the third floor looked alike. They had the same metal panelling, the same small plastic rectangle for holding a name, and the same fluorescent lighting that beamed up and down the corridor.

Fareeha is halfway to her own room when a door that is not her own hisses open and slots into place with a click behind her.

“Fareeha?”

Turning around, it’s the messy hair and coffee stained lab coat that she first notices. Not things she would have associated with the doctor, whose perfect appearance earlier that day contrasted so thoroughly with her two-in-the-morning attire.

“Doctor Ziegler.” Fareeha nods once, curtly.

Angela’s shoulders visibly relax, though the slight furrow in her brow remains. “You should be sleeping, it’s no time to be awake.”

“Does a degree in medicine make you exempt from this rule?” Fareeha asks, expression remaining perfectly neutral.

“I… Yes. As a matter of fact, it does.” The doctor crosses her arms, practically daring Fareeha to challenge her.

Fareeha’s expression cracks into a small smile at that.

“Take care, Doctor.”

Before Angela can reply, Fareeha resumes her path down the corridor, making a left and disappearing from view. The doctor’s door shuts with a sigh and Angela echoes it.

It’s the week later that their paths cross inadvertently once more. The wind whistles against the harsh cliffside pushing clouds in and out of the sun’s view; a blue Raptora suit sitting in the grass, disassembled in a pile as if it had crumbled to the ground out of fatigue. Soon to join it are the detachable wings of the Valkyrie, a faint golden glow lighting them at the tips.

Angela takes two steps towards the seated woman whose gaze remains fixed on some distant point on the horizon, but stops short of coming up beside her.

“I didn’t expect to see someone else up here.”

Fareeha starts, hands coming together to bring a book closed with a soft clap. She places it to the side, pen slotted down the spiral bind before looking up at the doctor. “Ah, neither did I.”

“I’m not disturbing you, am I?”

“Mm, no. Not really.”

When Fareeha doesn’t continue, Angela takes a seat in the grass, crossing one leg over the other. “I suppose it makes sense, you being here and not down there.” Angela gestures beyond the cliff to the sandy bay beneath them which the newest recruits - Lúcio and Hana - were dashing about on. “Nobody else could have made it so high up.”

“Aside from you.”

“I do believe that was a stroke of luck,” Angela says with a smile, willing Fareeha to lighten up a bit.

It doesn’t work. “The Valkyrie suit is a work of technical genius, there is little luck behind its performance.” The soldier’s expression remains hard as ever, eyes still glued to what Angela thinks might just be an interestingly shaped cloud.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both wondering what reasons the other had for choosing this particular spot along the cliffs.

Fareeha is the first to break the silence. “I feel like I know you. From a long time ago, not just last week. Why is that?”

Angela sighs, fingers tapping the grass in thought. “As if we’ve met many times, but only briefly?”

“Something like that.”

For either of them to mention recurring dreams of squawking birds and compare them to one another would seem absurd. Angela would have said the bold angles of the incorporeal falcon resembled the Raptora if her rational mind didn't refute the coincidence. Fareeha would have said the doctor’s hair matched a phoenix’s plumage if her pride wasn’t at risk.

“It's just that -” Angela starts in time with Fareeha.

“I can't help but - ah, you first.”

Angela pauses then, unsure how to start. Thankfully, she doesn't even have the chance to be interrupted.

From a crack in the rocky cliffside began a rhythmic singing, a silvery breath that seemed to tug the hazy red glow of the sun down with each note. Its deep warmth rose and fell for another cadence or two before giving way to a second voice.

Both Fareeha and Angela lean forward,  briefly glancing at one another before returning their attention to the hidden music.

Soaring melody breaks free, as if whatever creature residing within that stony crevasse was a medium for channeling sounds of the sun and sky. With one ecstatic cry, it shoots from the cliff, spreading its wings of white and gold. Arcing away from them, it is soon met by a bird nearly twice its size and of brilliant blue.

Angela sits in awe for a moment longer, not noticing the way Fareeha looks back and forth between her and the smaller bird.

“Your hair matches its feathers.”

“My - what?” Angela gapes before noticing the smile tugging at the corner of Fareeha’s lips. A joke. “My hair does not look like a bird's plumage.”

“It's the same colour.”

“And completely incapable of fluffing up when I disagree.”

Fareeha hums, agreeing to disagree. “I’ve heard the blue bird sing before, but never have I seen it.”

“What were the chances we'd find them here?”

Not very likely, but Fareeha knows it must have meaning. A bird from Cairo, and one from Switzerland, meeting at the centre of an unfinished battle to sing their song unhindered.

Beneath them, Hana packed away a picnic of sandwiches and doritos while Lúcio frantically chases a ball heading towards the crooked blue line of the ocean waves lapping at the beach. Lena’s grin shone a bright white, visible even from the cliff as she laughed. Finally, Fareeha allows herself a smile, and Angela thinks to herself that maybe the new Overwatch could be something better.

“I look forward to working with you, Doctor Ziegler.”

“And I with you, Fareeha.”


End file.
